Thursday, March 15, 2018

Recently, I learned of the passing of makeup artist and inventor, Maurice Stein. I had the pleasure of interviewing Maurice in 2006, inside Cinema Secrets, the Toluca Lake, California store which sells not just cinema-quality makeup, but also many of his ingenious innovations.

Talking with Maurice was one of the most memorable experiences I had in researching Golden Girls Forever -- and that's really saying something, because I also got to sit for a day each with Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Betty White! But for one thing, makeup artists are often privy to the most intimate details of stars' personal lives, spending so much time with them each day. And Maurice's memories of the groundbreaking show, and his storytelling skills, were both superb.

But the most interesting thing I learned that day was about how, out of Golden Girls necessity, Maurice ended up inventing a brand new cinema technique that is still used to this day. Below, a featurette that didn't make it into Golden Girls Forever, due to space constraints. (Hopefully it will someday, in some kind of expanded edition.) I think it's a proper tribute to a funny, warm guy whom I had the pleasure of meeting, and who helped bring the world laughter via Sophia Petrillo.

As The Golden Girls progressed, the series’ hair and makeup crew would
be tasked with some very specific challenges, such as turning Estelle Getty and
Bea Arthur into a convincing Sonny and Cher. But by then, such sartorial
switchups were old hat for costume designer Judy Evans, hair stylist Joyce
Melton and makeup artist Maurice Stein.After all, they’d already been convincingly transforming Estelle –
actually a tiny bit younger than her co-stars Betty and Bea – into an old lady
for years.

For the earliest
episodes in season one, Estelle's hair was merely sprayed gray, as the actress
herself had done to perform her shtick for producer after producer during her
many auditions. But very soon, as it became clear that The Golden Girls would be an enduring
hit, it also became obvious that some things had to change.

And so, not far into the
first season, the show's producers commissioned Sophia's trademark -- and
expensive -- curly white human-hair wig. But the larger problem was, the prevailing
old-age makeup technique at the time, a process called “stretch and stipple,”
took over four hours to apply, and as Maurice remembers Estelle saying, “an
hour and a half, and a couple of vodkas, to take off.”Each week, that added up to five or six hours
of expensive production time – and an extra headache for an already nervous
Estelle.

And so, Golden Girls producer Marsha Posner
Williams had made a call to Maurice, luring him out of his early retirement; as
luck would have it, Maurice had spent his newfound spare time inventing a new
waterproof, oil-free foundation.Now,
instead of putting his star through the time-consuming application, blow-drying
and powdering of layers and layers of latex, Maurice was able to cover Estelle’s
face with several strata of the fast-drying foundation, and followed by accentuating
her natural wrinkles with a makeup pencil (and, after Estelle’s facelift
between seasons one and two, creating those lines anew.)

Today, Maurice still
sells his Cinema Secrets Ultimate Foundation to
the public; and because it's one of the only products medically approved to
cover radiation burns, he donates his time and product to kids in burn units
and to women with cancer. As Maurice jokes, his products “aren't tested
on animals…but on actors.” So really, he adds, in the end, it was partly Estelle's
ambition to play Sophia that has resulted not only in an innovative new
product, but also in charitable work that has benefitted people around the
world.

In television, Jim co-created an original animated pilot for the Disney Channel, and contributed comic material to four annual Oscar-themed comedy specials airing on Comedy Central, hosted by his husband, Frank DeCaro of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. In 2010, Jim and Frank's comedic music video with Fredrick Ford, "Betty White Lines" went viral, and was featured on The Today Show and CNN's Showbiz Tonight.

Jim has written for entertainment media since his days as the Film Editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian, the college newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a degree in marketing from the Wharton School of Business. Originally from Wayne, New Jersey, he now lives in Los Angeles with Frank and their mischievous Boston terrier, Gabby.